Morphing
by StillSilentWatcher
Summary: Roy Mustang was morphing into something he never thought he would become. WARNING: Language and drug usage in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1: Fragments

**Morphing**

Roy Mustang was morphing into something he never thought he would become.

* * *

A/N: These characters aren't mine, yada yada. There will be swearing a drug use in later chapters, so please, if you aren't old enough or mature enough to handle it, or if reading will negatively impact you, please don't read. I won't be offended. _

* * *

Roy Mustang was far too old for this.

For the past week and a half, Colonel Roy Mustang and his men had been scouring the rain soaked streets of Central for a man that quite frankly, he was beginning to have his doubts existed. No matter what leads he and his team received, upon arriving armed and ready, the scene always turned up empty. The only thing that proved that the man, whom they called "The Mask," was real was the string of bodies that had been showing up in nearly every nook and cranny of the capital city of Amestris. The odd thing about the bodies, though, was that there were never any possessions taken from them, and The Mask did not discern between men, women, and children of all ages. What made these murders distinct were five gunshot wounds in precisely the same places on each body; one in each leg, one in each arm, and a bullet hole in the dead center of the forehead. It was with sick horror that Mustang had realized that The Mask wanted to make sure that his victims had no possible means of crawling away from him before he shot them cleanly in the head to finish them off. This last fact, however, was not the most disturbing.

What made these murders potentially the worst that Colonel Mustang had ever investigated was the fact that each of the victims' faces had been removed, the skin sliced cleanly away from the bloody pulp of their faces as if they had removed a particularly horrific mask, which is what earned the killer his title. So far, the mad man had killed twelve people in Central alone, and the city was beginning to panic, teetering on edge to match Roy Mustang's last nerve.

"Are you _sure_ about this one Hughes?" He hissed softly, as his small team of men came to a silent halt behind his raised hand, crammed into one of the many narrow alleyways in the city.

Beside the Colonel, Lt. Colonel Maes Hughes gave curt nod, raising both of his hands to reveal his trademark throwing knives.

Like so many of Mustang's cases, Hughes had been the intelligence member chosen to assist the Colonel, and Roy had not doubted his friend's information gathering abilities for a second. However, with each lead that had come up as a dud, Maes knew that Roy grew more and more antsy. Not only had they not caught the man responsible for a dozen confirmed deaths, but Maes knew that if Roy's team continued to fail, it would seriously impact his furious bid to move up in the ranks, and eventually become Fuhrer.

Maes glanced over at his best friend's face, catching Roy's determined black eyes narrowed in concentration as he waited for the right moment to signal his men to strike.

He would not let Roy fail.

Roy raised his right hand, his fingers tight and ready to snap his trademark flames into life. "On my mark, soldiers."

Maes inhaled sharply.

"NOW!"

With preemptive, Colonel Mustang threw down his raised left hand and rushed around the corner of the dim alleyway, Maes and the rest of his men hot on his heels.

Even as far as the other side of Central, two distinctive gunshots could be heard cracking through the overcastted skies.

* * *

Hughes saw the scene before him unfold with painstaking slowness.

At the dead end of the corridor, a heavy set man was leaning over the curled form of what appeared to be a young man, pressing a small revolver against the struggling man's forehead. Hearing Mustang's cry, however, the man jerked his head up and, in a fashion that betrayed his hulking physique, deftly changed targets with his gun, pointing it instead at Roy and his men as they flooded the small space. In under a second, the man cocked his gun and fired two shots ahead of him with deadly precision.

Out of the corner of his eye, Maes saw Roy crumple and fall without a sound until his body thudded hard against the unforgiving cobblestone street.

"Open fire!" he yelled, himself letting loose of the knives he held in each hand.

Against the rain of gunshots, Maes barely noticed as the in front of them quickly fell to the ground without so much as a twitch. He had dropped to his knees, instinctively removing his military jacket. From what he could see by the blood that was quickly staining both the ground and the other man's uniform, Roy had been shot once in the right arm, and once in his left leg, but it was hard to be sure. A visceral scream was tearing itself up through Roy's throat, and his eyes that had looked so steady just a few moments before were now unfocused and wide, staring up into the grey sky above as tears welled at the popping corners.

As Maes reached to remove Roy's own jacket, the Colonel's torso bucked upward, and his teeth gnashed together in a sickening crack, his screaming ceasing as he attempted to gain control over his pain. In between his clenched teeth, Roy sucked into huge and horrible gasps as he squirmed under Maes' touch.

"Come on Roy, stay with me. Calm down and try to hold still," he commanded as gently as he could manage, but the request went unheard to Mustang's deaf ears. Noticing that the fire had ceased, Maes shouted over his shoulder at whichever one of the men was listening.

"I need a medic here!"

"Yes, sir!"

Maes turned back to Roy, who was still writhing under the Lt. Colonel's strong grip. Knowing that getting his friend to listen to him was beyond reason at this point, Hughes drew another knife from within his sleeve and cut through Mustang's jacket.

It was exactly what Maes had suspected, but in a way, far worse.

The Mask had shot Roy in the arm, but with either incredible skill or incredible luck, the man had managed to shoot cleanly through his humerus. Even through the sticky blood that was flowing easily from the wound, Maes could see that the bone had shattered and separated, leaving little white fragments embedded in the surrounding meat of Mustang's arm.

Knowing that this was beyond him, Maes tied the arm of his jacket around Roy's arm and pulled it into a tight knot, attempting to create a makeshift tourniquet, hoping that the medic would arrive quickly. As he did this, however, another scream broke its way out from behind the Colonel's clenched teeth at the new pressure that had been applied to the broken wound. He thrashed his head from side to side, bashing his taut face against the slick stone, drawing even more blood.

Hughes immediately caught his friend's head in his hands, holding him steady, forcing their eyes to lock.

"Roy, calm down! Listen to my voice, it's going to be alright. Just hold on a little bit longer."

The pain, it seemed, was too great and after only a brief second of contact, Mustang's eyes dulled and rolled back into his head.

"Dammit, Roy," Maes hissed, as he released his friend's head, laying it gently to the ground. He wasted no time in picking up his knife once more to cut the remaining arm off of Roy's jacket and tied it just above the sluggishly bleeding wound in his leg. He looked up again over his shoulder. "Where the hell is the goddamned medic?!"

"Lt. Colonel, sir."

A solider whose name Hughes did not know had materialized at this side, his arm plastered in salute. Maes looked up at him impatiently.

"At ease. Well, is the medic here or not?" He said it testily, but he didn't care. Every second that passed was another second closer to Roy fading away for good. Something which he absolutely would not allow.

"He's here and ready to take the Colonel to Central Hospital. He was collecting the victim, sir."

Maes looked over to see an ambulance parked nearby, with the young man already loaded into the back.

When had that gotten there?

"Right," he said slowly, regaining his senses. A man and a woman in white uniforms had knelt beside him and were lifting Roy's limp body onto a stretcher on the ground next to them. As they lifted the Colonel up and began to carry him away, Maes reluctantly turned back to the Private before him.

"Tell the workers in the ambulance to call Headquarters and ask 1st Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye to head to Central Hospital immediately. I don't care what she's doing, just tell her it's my orders."

The Private saluted, and then rushed away.

Maes stood up straighter, taking in a deep breath.

Roy would be okay.

He would just have to wait until he got there.

A/N: And so ends chapter 1… Huh. It feels short. Please tell me what you think, and what I need to work on! Your criticism is greatly appreciated Also, this chapter was just background for the rest of the story…Boo.


	2. Chapter 2: The Only Thing Strong Enough

A/N: I just noticed that I had a lot of typos in that last chapter. I'M SORRY D: I hope this one is better.

Chapter 2: The Only Thing Strong Enough

"Sir, I think the doctor is here to see you."

Maes Hughes looked up from his sleeping daughter's face. For the past five hours he had been sitting anxiously in the surgical waiting room of Central's hospital, waiting to hear news of his best friend's condition. As much as he had wanted to accompany Roy to the hospital, Maes had not been allowed to leave the scene of the crime, instead having to stay behind to gather as much evidence as possible. Despite the fact that The Mask had been killed (thanks to several bullets and a precise strike from one of Maes' own knives), there had been an incredible amount of information and items to collect and with each moment that passed, Maes felt minutes ticking away from his life due to the increasing worry he felt.

Luckily for him, 1st Lieutenant Hawkeye had rushed to the hospital at Hughes' orders and had been able to meet Roy as the ambulance had arrived. If there was anyone besides himself that Maes trusted to handle Roy's medical decisions in his inability, it was her. In her calm, efficient manner, Hawkeye had filled out of all of her Colonel's vital, contact, and billing information before being told the details of Roy's evaluation, which she had promptly relayed to Maes when he arrived.

'_Bless her heart_,' he mused blearily. She had even gone to the lengths of calling Gracia, who, much to Maes' surprise and delight, had been sitting with Riza and Elicia in the hospital waiting room when he hastily arrived.

It was her voice that now dragged Maes out of his stupor.

"What," he asked dumbly, not really hearing what she had told him .Riza's eyes momentarily dropped their steely gaze, softening to meet his own olive colored eyes.

"I said, I think the doctor is here to talk to you, sir."

He rubbed the back of his neck with a shaky hand, embarrassed. "Ah, right."

He stood up, still holding a sleeping Elicia and stretched upward on his toes before handing his small daughter to his wife. He smiled softly at her.

"I don't think I'm going to make it home in time for dinner, sweetheart," he sighed, kissing Gracia lightly on the cheek. A small pang of guilt hit him. He had been getting home late nearly every night for the past two weeks because of this case, and now it seemed that it was going to be even later. Ever good natured, though, Gracia simply leaned into her husband for a hug.

"It's alright, Maes."

Despite missing her husband in his recent absence, Gracia was not the type to get angry. She knew that her husband he an important position, made even more important by his devotion to helping Roy become Fuhrer; she was one of the only people besides Maes and Riza to know of his secret bid. Outside of that, she also knew how much Roy meant to Maes, and there was no way that she could keep the kind man from his injured friend. Besides, the Colonel was a close friend of hers as well, and more nights than not, the man was over at hers and Maes' house for dinner. She stood on the tip of her toes and kissed Maes' scratchy cheek.

"Just call me when you know how Roy is doing, alright?"

Hughes smiled at her warmly.

"Of course." He bent down slightly and gently ruffled Elicia's hair. "Sleep tight, princess. Daddy will see you in the morning."

Before he could begin to gush, Riza grabbed the Lt. Colonel under the arm, and dragged him to the small, back room where the surgeon waited.

* * *

Riza had known when she received a call telling her that Lt. Colonel Hughes had ordered her to report to Central Hospital. Ignoring Falman, Breda, Havoc, and Fuery, Hawkeye had calmly but speedily gathered her coat and guns and drove as quickly as she could get away with to the hospital. What was she going to be told when she got there? A pit in the bottom of her stomach threatened to burst as she had strode in the entrance, growing with her fear that Mustang had been killed. What would she do if he _had_ died? A small part of her shivered, and put it out of her mind. She didn't want to know.

Now, however, she was standing with Lt. Colonel Hughes in one of the small back rooms of the waiting room. The doctor had emerged after several painstaking hours, and she had dragged Hughes away from his wife and daughter, almost feeling guilty. Almost.

"Hello," said the doctor, shaking each of their hands briskly. He was an older gentleman, with graying hair and pouches beginning to line his sun worn face. "I'm Dr. Kerry Eckman, and I saw Mr. Mustang through his surgeries."

"How did it go," asked Hughes, letting go of the other man's fierce grip as soon as the doctor's last words had left his lips.

"Well, he's stabilized, but it was nasty procedure," Dr. Eckman said, flipping through his notes on a clip board he held. "Luckily, the bullets avoided any of his major arteries, and since it was only the two shots, we were able to focus more of our attention on those injuries. There were a few complications, however."

Riza and Maes caught each others' eyes uneasily, before Riza spoke up.

"What kind of complications, sir?"

The old doctor rubbed his eyes with one hand before returning to his clip board.

"Whoever this shooter was, he was a damn good marksman," he sighed, taking a pencil and flipping to a clean piece of paper. He drew a small man on the sheet with a bone scribble on the inside of the right arm and left leg. "This bone is called the humerus," he began, pointing to the arm bone and then moved to the leg bone, continuing, "and this one is the femur. Now normally, when we see gunshot patients who have been hit in one of their limbs, the bullet has either grazed the outside of the limb, or it has penetrated the muscle." He drew a small dot on the line of the arm and right on the inside of it. "Both of these problems, though still painful, are easy enough to fix."

The doctor paused in his explanation to draw a jagged line through each of the bones he had drawn. "Your friend Mustang, however, was unlucky enough to be shot directly through the bone with each bullet that hit him."

Maes hissed. He knew that Roy's arm had been broken by the bullet, but he did not know that his leg had been broken as well. No wonder he had passed out so quickly.

"The entry sites looked pretty bad when he first came in; it took nearly an hour to just clear away the bone shards that had embedded themselves into the surrounding tissue, but once we got that cleaned up we were able to get to work. Because the bullets shattered both his femur and his humerus, we had to do two small bone grafts at each area by removing some of his right hip bone and inserted a couple of pins in each to hold them in place while they heal and reattach."

"Jeez," Maes breathed, running his hand through his wild hair. Beside him, Riza was quiet as she absorbed the information.

Dr. Eckman looked up from his notes. "The bad news is that it's going to be a long, painful recovery, though I doubt I have to tell you two that. The femur and the humerus are two of the hardest bones in the body to break, and as a result, they're some of the hardest to heal. He's going to need some physical therapy to ensure that his muscles rework themselves properly, and depending on how things go, we may or may not remove the pins holding the bones in place."

"Do you have any good news for us, doctor," Riza asked, breaking her silence. Maes looked over at her, and for a fraction of a second, saw that her face was less controlled than its normal blank slate. She looked almost…_human_, he decided.

The old man turned his gaze to her and a gentle grin crinkled up his cheeks and eyes.

"The two of you may go back to see him, if you'd like."

* * *

As military personnel, both Maes and Riza were accustomed to making hospital visits to see injured comrades and friends, as well as each having spent their fair share of times in as patients themselves. For as often as they had frequented Central Hospital, Maes and Riza were still a little surprised by what they saw before them.

Roy Mustang did not look like Roy Mustang. He was laid carefully on his hospital bed with his arm and leg hanging from hooks on the ceiling, so that, Maes suspected, the tender healing flesh on both sides of his limbs would not rub against the mattress. As the two military officers moved closer, they began to take in the details of Roy's face; he was as white as the sheets beneath him, and the dim hospital lights that reflected off of his skin gave his pale face a sickly, jaundiced look, and even in his sleep, his teeth were clenched in pain.

For a moment, the two comrades stood in silence, taking in their friend's damaged form. It was strange, to see such a man with an air like Mustang's to be shriveled and half gasping on a bed.

"I doubt he's going to be awake for a while," Riza said quietly. She did not look at Hughes at she said this, her eyes instead gazing forlornly over her superior. In the dull light, her face looked suddenly longer than usual. "Someone should probably report back to Headquarters to let everyone know how he's doing."

Hughes turned to her, putting his hand softly on her shoulder. "You don't need to rush off right now, Riza. The guys at the office can wait an hour or two." And it was true. Being in Intelligence, Hughes knew that as long as it was reported that Roy was alive, the military did not need to know so much immediately.

She sighed, a small smile coming to her lips. "No, the others will want to know." She looked back at Mustang. "Besides, the Colonel isn't going to want me to see him like this at first. He knows that he'll have to face me when he's awake."

Maes chuckled. It was the truth, after all. Each time the Colonel was injured, the 1st Lieutenant was sure to berate him as soon as he was well enough to take it. The two of them fought like an old married couple, and each time he and Roy went out for a drink, he was sure to point that out to Roy, who never failed to go a bit pink.

"Alright," he conceded, patting her on the back. "Just come back as soon as you can get out of there. I'll make sure to call you if anything changes."

Riza turned to leave, saluting Maes as she came to the door. He saluted back, and as soon as he had, she broke stance and continued through the open door.

Now alone with Roy, Maes felt as though his body was about six times heavier than normal. This was not the first time that Roy had been injured on the job, it was the first time that Maes had been with him when it had happened. When he had seen Roy go down beside him, he had felt as though time had stopped. Maes' heart had leapt into his throat and the air seemed to deflate from his lungs. Roy couldn't die. His commander couldn't die. His best friend _couldn't die_. His image of Roy was always that he was someone who couldn't be knocked down by man, nature, or god. Now, however, Maes was reconsidering this notion.

At that moment, Maes' reverence was broken by a squat, cheerful looking young nurse with curly red hair who came into the room carrying several bags filled with various clear liquids.

"Time for some new IV drips, Colonel," she chimed, unloading her arms onto Roy's small bedside table. "You can stay here if you'd like, sweetheart," she added, seeing that Maes' had turned to leave the room.

"Ah, yeah. Thanks," he stuttered, sitting down in a chair that the nurse pointed out to him. He watched passively as the young woman disconnected the bags hanging down from Roy's stand and began to attach the new bags to his IV.

"I'm Faye, by the way," she said nonchalantly as she set the old bags aside and began to check Roy's pulse, frowning and looking at the watch on her wrist.

"Lt. Colonel Maes Hughes," he told her, watching her actions with mild interest- medicine was always something that Maes had an interest in.

Faye pressed a hand flatly against Roy's forehead. "Are you a friend of Mr. Mustang?"

"Yes ma'am. We go back to our days in the military academy, so it's been about… ten years?"

She looked at him, smiling. "You two must be close then, especially considering you're here now."

He chuckled, scratching his head. "Well, there's no way I couldn't NOT come- you'll probably see once Roy is awake that intelligence does not equate common sense."

"Well," she said, washing her hands at the small sink in the corner of the room, "I'll just have to judge when he's awake. The poor dear," she added, looking at his harsh breathing. "Perhaps I should see that the doctor increase his medication for pain…"

Maes suddenly remembered that she had placed the empty bags that had held Roy's medications on the table. Curious, he took them in his hand. The first was a saline solution. _'Common.'_ The second was a bag of O+ blood. _'Of course; Roy must have lost quite a bit of blood back there.' _When he read the third bag's label, however, his breath hitched momentarily.

"Is Roy's painkiller _morphine_?"

Faye stopped bustling about, caught off guard by Hughes' question. "Yes, dear. For the time being, Dr. Eckman would like him on a morphine drip."

Maes winced. He wasn't well versed in the world of health care, but simply hearing that Roy was being giving morphine made his stomach twist a little. He had heard many stories of patients and even fellow injured military men who had suffered from nasty side effects from morphine. It was a hard drug on the system. Not only that, but morphine was an opiate and if not given in exact, carefully monitored small dosages, could be highly addictive.

"Isn't there anything else you can give him?" Even as the words left his mouth, Maes could hear the unease in his own voice.

Faye frowned, her face losing its cheer. "Unfortunately, morphine is the only thing that is strong enough to help with the pain right now." She exhaled deeply as she reached over and gently tugged the bags out of Maes' hands. "He took a couple of very hard shots, and even now he's still suffering."

At this, Maes felt a pang of guilt.

It was true. The evidence of this was Roy's shaking, gasping form beside him. Maes was still not please with this revelation, but for now, he would hold his tongue.

"I…suppose you're right." He looked down at his knees. "I'm sorry."

Some of the brightness returned to Faye's face as she laid a hand on his shoulder. "It's quite alright sweetie. I'll try to make sure he gets put on something less potent as soon as we're able."

Maes gave her a heavy smile. "Thanks, Faye."

With a small glint in her eye, and a parting squeeze, she left Hughes to be alone with Roy.

Leaning forward in his chair, Maes observed his friend somberly. For some reason, he had the feeling that the road ahead in Roy's recovery was going to be a long one. Gently, he took the other man's uninjured hand in his own and held it on his bed.

"Don't worry, buddy. Everything will be better soon."

A/N: There's a reason I chose to title this story "Morphing." Can you guess? ;)


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